


Childish

by orphan_account



Category: Angel Sanctuary
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-24
Updated: 2011-04-24
Packaged: 2017-10-18 15:08:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/190159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raphael, after much trial and tribulation, convinces Michael that he needs a check-up. Interesting things result.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Childish

For ages, Raphael thought Michael was really just a kid. Of course, anyone could see that the archangel looked like one, and all agreed that he acted like one. The angel of fire might be a bloodthirsty berserking monster in the heat of battle, but on his off hours he was a bratty redhead, much like any mortal teenager with too much extra anger and no useful outlet. 

There were other reasons, too. Raphael could understand his fellow archangel's anger when it came to his height and his brother, but he wished Michael would do other things with it instead of turning the immediate area into an inferno. It was childish. Yes, the angel of fire was merely a kid with an unusual and dangerous way of throwing a tantrum, and no one to discipline him. 

There was also the matter of women. All kids thought kissing was gross, and Michael had basically the same attitude towards the opposite gender. The wind angel waited secretly for the day little Mika-chan got his first crush. He wasn't planning to actually tease him about it, but he was looking forward to the day Michael had to back down and show a little respect. But centuries passed, and the fire angel never showed an interest in women. He put up with Jibril's ragging at him, which everyone including himself knew he was in desperate need of, but there were never any actual crushes. As time went on Raphael began to wonder. Was the war angel capable of love? 

As a doctor, the wind angel was extremely curious as to why Michael's astral powers had developed so quickly that he couldn't grow up all the way when nothing of the sort had happened to any of the other elemental angels, or the fire angel's own twin brother. Raphael wanted to examine him, but he never got permission. The very mention of a check-up made Michael get so defensive that sparks rose from his skin. The wind angel usually gave up on the argument when Michael went into some rant about how if he was that fucking bored, there were plenty of sluts out there who would amuse him, and how he would be very grateful if Raphael would _not_  get his fellow archangel, his fellow  _male_  archangel, confused with those whores, thank you very  _fucking_  much, I think I'll go kill something now. And Raphael let him go, because he liked his office the way it was, and Michael usual crashed through a wall on his way out instead of using the door, anyway. This always caused a slight smile to curl around his cigarette. How childish. 

Then Raphael started noticing things about Michael, especially after the Great War. There was the arrogance, as always, but the hardness in his face didn't come from that. And while the fire angel still blew things up, he seemed to do it more for amusement than out of senseless anger. Then Raphael started noticing the cuts on his arms. How could he have missed something so obvious? Mika-chan had never worn only shirts with long sleeves before, but now he did, to cover up the scabs and scars. They weren't healing as fast as they should, either. Eventually, Raphael got the nerve up to address the problem. He was expecting to be caught in the middle of an average-sized mushroom cloud. Instead, his fellow archangel fixed him with an impassive gaze as he unsheathed Kriel, rolled up his sleeve and calmly drew the blade across the underside of his arm. He then proceeded to melt the skin back together with his fire. 

Even as a doctor, Raphael found the smell of burning flesh nauseating. He clapped a hand over his mouth, eyes wide as he tried not to hurl.  _"Stop_  it, Michael!" he shrieked as the fire angel was about to repeat this a second time. "God, what the hell are you  _doing_  to yourself?" 

With a sigh, the fire angel put his sword away. "What's it to you?" he asked casually. "You're a medical doctor, not a shrink." 

"What's it to me!?" Raphael repeated incredulously. "You're my friend, damnit, and you're hurting yourself! What is  _wrong_  with you!?" 

Michael yawned, as if the conversation bored him. "I don't feel it, Raphael. I know what I'm doing, but my pain receptors are shot. I'm a mental and physical mess, and if you haven't noticed that by now, than either you're a bad doctor or just good lying to yourself." He held up the arm with the sleeved pulled up and lit it on fire from elbow to fingertips. The smell of burning flesh again permeated the air, and Raphael's stomach heaved. "The only one who doesn't get burned by my fire," Michael said softly, "is me." He let the fire go out and his skin recover. 

"I'm examining you," the wind angel decided when he could talk again. "I don't care what your excuse is. You need a doctor." 

"No," Michael said flatly. 

"It's not up for debate," Raphael shot back. "I'm seeing what's wrong with you myself, if I need Khamael to hit you over the head and knock you out first." 

"If I flat-out order him not to, and order my men to stop you, then there's nothing you can do." Michael fixed him with a smoldering glare. 

Raphael gaped back at him. Those eyes. When had they turned yellow? "Luci--" he said before he could stop himself. 

The look that passed ever-so-briefly over the fire angel's face might have been classified as startled. He squeezed his eyes shut with what seemed like a great effort. When he opened them again, they were back to their usual green shade. "Sorry about that," he said. "It happens sometimes." 

"That's it," Raphael snapped, grabbing him. "You need help." 

"So what else is new," Michael grumbled, pulling away. 

Not bothering to answer, the wind angel took hold of him again, waiting for the fight or argument that happened every time he brought this up. The one he always lost. "Do you want to be short forever, Michael?" he demanded, determined not to back dwon this time. 

 _"Yes!"_  Michael shouted, surprising the hell out of him. "I'm an archangel stuck in a kid's body, and what makes you think I care? What makes you think you know me oh-so-fucking-well, you goddamn womanizer!? What makes you think I  _want_  to grow up? I  _know_  I'm short, goddamnit! The thing that  _pisses me off_  is that everyone has to keep fucking  _telling_  me about it!" He jerked away from Raphael and ran out, actually using the door. That probably scared the wind angel the most. 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------- 

It took awhile, but Michael finally agreed to let the doctor look at him, after much nagging from both him and Jibril. It was a tough battle, but at the end, the fire angel was sitting on the metal table with his shirt off, fuming silently. It was all he could do to keep sparks from flying as he was poked and prodded and tapped and stuck with needles in some places and lights in others. By the time Raphael took a few x-rays, he was livid. 

"Are you  _quite_  done?" he snarled, sitting up. 

"Almost," Raphael replied in his most business-like tone. "I need to take a look at your legs." 

"My pants stay on." Michael's tone left no room for argument. 

The wind angel sighed. "Michael, stop making this difficult." 

"Haven't you done enough already?" the fire angel demanded. "This is taking fucking  _forever."_  

Raphael was getting tired of this, and said as much. "I don't see the problem, Michael. You used to wear fishnet and short shorts all the time. This'll take five minutes if you just take your pants off. For God's sake, stop acting like I'm going to try to take advantage of you." 

The fire angel apparently decided it wasn't worth the hassle, because a minute later he was sitting on the table in his underwear, looking even angrier, if that was possible. Raphael realized he'd have to hurry this up if he didn't want to be cooked alive. But confirming his suspicions would only take a minute. 

"Alright," he said finally, allowing Michael to get up and trying to decide how to address his finds. 

The fire angel leapt off the table accordingly. "You'd better not be planning to make a habit of humiliating me," he answered haughtily. 

"What's that?" the wind angel asked, catching sight of black lettering on the inside of Michael's right thigh. 

 _"Nothing,"_  Michael snapped, taking hold of his pants. 

Raphael wasn't about to let it go that easily. He seized the elemental's knee and squinted at the writing. Michael jerked away, but not before the wind angel had deciphered the word oh his leg. Black, curving script that read  _Lucifel._  

"Ok," Raphael said, trying to recover as his fellow archangel yanked his clothes on angrily. "One, why are you stunting your growth purposely, and two, why did Lucifel tattoo his name on the inside of your leg?" 

Michael stood with his back to him, having finished dressing himself. For a second, it seemed that he would simply barge through the wall and fly off to some godforsaken place. He wanted to right then, more than anything, but he knew he wasn't a kid anymore, and maybe Raphael deserved to know that, too. 

"When I was a kid," the fire angel said quietly, "I burned my hair to this color, and changed my eyes to this color, and carved this tattoo into my skin." He traced the dragon with one hand. "It was all because I didn't want to look like him. I wasn't good enough to look like him, and then, I wanted to deny the fact that we're related . . . when I realized what he was. I can't grow up. I have the dragon, but my hair keeps turning black. My eyes keep turning yellow. I can't fucking  _stand_  the thought of looking in the mirror and seeing his face staring back at me." He paused, trying to keep his voice from shaking. "Lucifel . . . used to call me shorty. When he wasn't acting all creepy. I think it was his way of apologizing . . . for the way things were." 

For the first time that he could remember, Raphael's cool was shattered mercilessly, the pieces scattered all across heaven, hell, and Earth, to the point where he thought he'd never get it back. "Erg, ehm, eh?" he blathered stupidly, then tried again. "So stabbing his name onto the inside of your leg was about what?" he managed. 

Michael wheeled around, eyes alternating between green and yellow. "I was his  _fucktoy,"_  he spat. "It didn't start out like that. When we were, I don't know, ten, eleven, we started fighting. With astral powers. For no reason. He just came home some days and started slamming things around. Soon as he saw me, we started fighting. Stupid fucking battles that lasted about ten or fifteen minutes. We beat the  _crap_  out of eachother." It was difficult to know if the fire angel was amused or horrified by the memory. "He was so goddamned  _angry,_  and nobody saw it. Then, around sixteen or seventeen, he came home in that mood. I was getting out of the shower. We were fighting, I was  _naked,_  and the next thing I knew he'd thrown me on my bed and started  _fucking_  me." 

Raphael's mouth was slightly open, eyes bugging out of his head. He couldn't have left even if he'd wanted to, which he wasn't sure he did. 

"If you remember when I started wearing long sleeves and pants all the time," the elemental continued, "that was why. We usually pretty much knocked eachother out and woke up all bruised and bloody. I don't know what the maids thought when they went to change our sheets. I don't know what  _we_  were thinking, for that matter. One night, he wiped me off, took out a pen, and wrote his name there. He had me write my name on him, too. He said . . . that we belong to eachother, no matter what. God, he was fucking deranged. I was too. I think I still am, and that he still is, wherever he's got to." 

Raphael gaped. 

"Stop that," Michael said, grinning faintly as he caught his friend's expression. "You look like Metatron." 

The wind angel snapped his mouth shut, trying to gather his scattered composure, to no avail. "So you . . . you . . . he . . . um . . . wow. I . . . I had no idea." 

Laughing softly, Michael reached up to ruffle Raphael's hair. "And you thought I was just a kid, and were waiting for me to get over my aversion to boobs. Don't tell me you weren't." Not waiting for a reply, he turned and started to head out the door. 

"Um, Michael?" Raphael asked. 

"Yeah?" the fire angel said, half-turning back. 

The wind angel couldn't believe he was saying this. "You can go out the wall if you want. It would, um, make me feel better." 

Michael smiled back at him. "No, I think I've grown out of that," he replied, and left. 

Raphael lit a cigarette, trying to sort out the confused his mess inside his head.  _So maybe he's not a kid,_  he thought, and decided that conclusion would have to do, for now. He had patients waiting. 

~End


End file.
